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Comment by 8f2ab37a-ed6c | Hacker News Reader

The good news is that for once we have a precedent of Apple listening to what people actually want with the new MBP lineup. Whether they'll be able to replicate that magic with their software teams remains to be seen, but at least now it feels within the realm of possible.

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I'm sure plenty of people will disagree with me, but I don't think this is a good precedent. Apple has always been opinionated, and that's a lot of what made Apple different. Admittedly, sometimes their opinionated takes weren't great, but a lot of times they really were great, even when some people didn't realize it. That's what allowed Apple to grow and soar to the heights it did. I worry that the new MBP line is a sign of Apple beginning to loose that quality that made them different from so many other companies... I worry that it's the start of a fall into mediocrity.

I agree that Apple's hot headedness in the past has helped the industry in the long run. For example, eliminating the floppy drive with the original iMac, or pushing for open alternatives to Flash by not allowing it on iPhones. It is concerning that they included a full size sd card reader (22 year old technology at this point).

The full size SD card slot is awesome for photography.

The SD form factor is over two decades old, but the technology inside the cards and readers has advanced significantly, so you're effectively complaining that nobody has broken backwards compatibility by switching form factors.

It taking up space instead of being perhaps a USB type-A is a bummer. USB-C docks that take the SD form factor still exist, of course.

I love SD cards, theyre like miniature floppy disks, but not too miniature - microSD feels very fragile and more difficult to handle - what do you have against full size SD?

I'm sure plenty of people will disagree with me, but I don't think this is a good precedent. Apple has always been opinionated, and that's a lot of what made Apple different.

I agree in principle but in practice Apple made a lot of bad bets with the previous generation across the entire product line.

Intel failed to meet its targets time and time again, which hit Apple's production schedules especially hard since they tend to make big updates infrequently rather than continuously updating internals to be as fast as possible.

The USB-C ecosystem never got as convenient or extensible as they had hoped. Only now do I see a lot of good USB-C docks and peripherals coming out and it's still not as robust as you would want if you're building your entire product suite around it.

Some stuff there just was no good alternative, particularly SD cards.

The TouchBar was a dud.

The low-profile switches on their keyboards had big reliability issues.

And many more! Part of being a bold innovator is knowing when an idea didn't work out. The latest generation shows that they're willing to defer to practical needs rather than doubling-down on failed ideas.

I’m startled by this. Apple got too good at believing it knew best when the industry told it that it was wrong. This created false confidence for bad ideas. Note that I’m a hardcore Apple fan saying this. The previous design was bad. Recent UI changes in the OS are bad. I criticize because I want the thing that I love to kick ass. On HW, they’ve got it. On SW, not so much.

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